Clowning's Still a Compulsion

Coins. I hate coins.
Not the concept of them having monetary value. I am fully in favor of us being able to divide the dollar into smaller denominations. I hate coins when The Husband is learning a new noisy coin trick.
It involves a champagne chiller and an invisible coin turning into a visible coin quite noisily. What's irritating now, is not only is he constantly practicing it in order to attain heretofore unseen levels of perfection, but HE ALREADY DOES IT PERFECTLY!!! So why is he still practicing? Does he want to drive The Dog and I over the edge?
I honestly don't think so. It's either a compulsion or the Husband genuinely thinks he needs to practice more ( its probably a combination of those things). So please, keep us in your thoughts, because if his compulsive low self-esteem behavior doesn't end soon, the champagne chiller may mysteriously disappear.

Business & Family Don't Go Together

"Did you talk to him about it yet?" I ask.
"No," says the Husband. Alarm bells go off in my head. We're 2 hours away from a party and he hasn't discussed price yet????
It's for his cousin; maybe the other cousins we've done parties for told him the price we gave them?
We're on the way to the party. "What price are you asking?"
"$80/hour."
"How many hours?"
"1 1/2."
Okay, so they must have discussed price. $120 is a lot of money.
We arrive at 4:30. No guests are there. Alarm bells go off in my head. The Husband is not going to start charging his cousin until his cousin asks him to start. I just know it. Even though the cousin asked him to show up at 4:30, he's not going to start the show until 5:30 or 6.
Ok. Fine. Family gets a discount. That's alright. I can live with that.
Fast forward to 9:00. The Husband asked me how long the show was. I'm really irritated, but I round way down for his cousin's sake. "An hour and a half?"
We say our good-byes. Lots of chitchat with the cousin. I look at the Husband's face. Something's not right.
I take the Son to the car, figuring the Husband will work it out. All of a sudden the Husband's at the car. "Please don't tell me 'I told you so."
The cousin didn't know the Husband charges for his show.
I didn't say "I told you so," but I sure thought it.

2012 COAI Clown Convention Part 3

Remember the Mexican clowns in Part 1? They make and sell some pretty gorgeous clown costumes.
Speaking of which, I was awoken by The Husband at 2:00 am last Thursday. All the lights are blazing in the bedroom. The Husband has donned the new costume he's paid who-knows-how-much-for. "Do you like it?" he asks. Not even bothering to put on my glasses, I reply, "It's great" and pulled the blanket up over my head.
To be fair, he does look extremely cute in it and I'm excited for him to wear it to his next party but WOW. 2:00 in the morning? What's even more impressive was that he was out the door to go to his class at the community college about 6 hours later.

2012 COAI Clown Convention-Part 2

The Husband took me with! To two events! Woohoo!!!
Here's some pictures. I'll write with some more humor and details in a few days. I'm still recovering from all the late nights. (Clowns go ALL night.)

2012 COAI Clown Convention KC Part 1

The Husband called me last night around 9:30.  He said, "Don't wait up for me."
He was at the Clown Convention and he was having a blast.  Apparently, he had met some clowns from Mexico there.  They had come all the way from Mexico to be part of the convention.  I think he said they were some sort of vendor there.  He was going to be out late so he could take them out to eat. I think he wanted to pick their brains.
The Husband also said that he had taken a class about balloons, but I haven't been able to speak to him about what cool things he has learned because he left to return to the clown convention before I had even packed my lunch for work this morning.

Yes, I did type this while I was at work, but I did it to show my students how to create a blog post.

Vindicated at last!

Last weekend we took the Cuñada (my sister-in-law) and the Suegra (my mother-in-law) to Target. As we were walking around, the Husband pulls out his coins and I quote, "Ya no hagas de las monedas. Ya me aburrí," exclaims the Cuñada. (Loose translation: Enough with the coins already! I'm sick of it!)
"Hahaha!" I cackle. "See, it's not just me who dislikes being your magic guinea pig!" (That's a paraphrase, not a quote.) Apparently he'd been practicing his coin tricks on her all week because he was tired of me complaining!
Then I pulled out my smartphone and recorded exactly what the Cuñada said so I would be able to give you, my wonderful audience, an exact quote. Yet another reason I love my iPhone. I can keep track of ways to tease the Husband. :D

No Fear

The Husband's family came to town from Mexico.  His brother, sister-in-law, nephew, mother, and sister all came.  The day before my brother-in-law left with his family (my sister-in-law and mother-in-law stayed longer), the Husband wanted to have an early birthday party for our nephew.  Should be a pretty simple, run-of-the-mill sort of thing for us, right?
Wrong.  Why?  The Nephew's AFRAID OF CLOWNS!!!!!!!  Since he resides in a different country than his uncle, the Husband, I suppose it's reasonable because he hasn't grown up seeing it like the Son has.  Usually, if we know a child at a party is going to be afraid of clowns, the Husband just leaves his make-up behind and wears one of his outfits.  The Husband, however, just couldn't allow that for the Nephew.  After all, this is a blood relative who is afraid of his beloved hobby.
So commenced Operation No Fear of Clowns.
Step 1.  Shop the thrift stores to put together an amazing clown outfit for the Nephew's mother (the Husband's Sister-in-law).
Step 2.  Every day for a whole week before the party, we told the Nephew that his uncle and his mom were going to dress up as clowns at the party.
Step 3.  The day of the party, the Nephew watched very attentively as the Husband did his own and the Nephew's mother's make-up.
Step 4.  Do an awesome magic show when the guests arrive.
And voilà, the kid thinks clowns are awesome.  Because they are.